How to communicate the winners of an Instagram Sweepstakes

Have you organized a sweepstakes among comments on Instagram and is it time to contact the winners? Once you have the list of the winners of the prize draw, time has come to contact the lucky ones so that they can receive their prize as soon as possible. But, how do you announce the result of the Instagram Sweepstakes and even more important, how do you get in touch with the winners?

Here we give you 5 ideas to how you can contact the winners of the sweepstakes on Instagram:

Idea 1: Include the link to the Winners page in the Instagram BIO

Once you’ve run the prize draw and you have the list of the winners, the platform will give you a template with the winners and the alternate winners (the Winners page) and a link to the Certificate of validity. This template is ready to publish but the application gives you the tools to customize it as you wish.

This way, when you have customized the template if needed, you can disseminate the Winners page to your users.

One of the peculiarities of Instagram is that it’s not possible to put links nor in the post nor in the comments, but it is possible to put one (1) link in the BIO of the Instagram profile. Take advantage of this space to post the link to the Winners page with a line that draws the attention such as: “We now have the winners of the sweepstakes! Find out if you’re one of them here → + link”.

Idea 2: Edit the sweepstakes post to announce the end of the contest

The users that have participated in your sweepstakes will be eager to find out who the winners are. That’s why in the days following the end date of the contest, many will for sure pay attention to your profile and first of all, the sweepstakes post to find out whether they’ve won or not. This is why it’s a good idea to take advantage of the visibility of the post to communicate to your users that the sweepstakes has finished. To do that, edit the text of the same sweepstakes post (Instagram allows modification of the text of a post) and add a line in the beginning that highlights: “SWEEPSTAKES FINISHED! Check out the last comment to know who the winners are!”.

Idea 3: Communicate and mention the winners in a comment on the post

Instagram encourage the personalized and unique interactions between the brands and the personal profiles so a very good practice is to communicate personally to the winners that they’ve won. How? On Instagram, the easiest way to contact directly with a user is to use the mentions, so the most practical is to write a comment on the sweepstakes post where you include the names of the winners as a mention. This way, the winners will receive a notification on their profile that they were mentioned in a comment and they will receive the message in a very direct and personalized way.

Note: If you have less than 5 winners, you can write the comment with the mentions included directly from the sweepstakes tool. More information.

Idea 4: Publish a new Post or a Story with the winners

Create a new post exclusively to announce the result of the sweepstakes. Upload the same creativity that you used in the sweepstakes post with a superimposed text that says: “We have found the winners!”. If you use the same image it will be much easier to attract the attention of the users that have participated in the sweepstakes because they will recognize the image and associate it with the contest.

You can also upload a screenshot of the customized Winners page that you’ve created with the template that Easypromos offers as the image of the post and this way show transparency.

In the comment of the post you can mention the winners so that they will receive a direct notification, and add the link to the winners page because even though Instagram doesn’t show links, if you use a URL shortener you can customize the link and make it easier to remember.

If for some reason you’re not interested in posting a post just to announce the winners, perhaps because your brand is very careful about the appearance of the posts on it’s profile, an alternative could be to post an Instagram Story so that it doesn’t stay on the profile permanently. This way you can use the Story to tell the users to check out the link in the BIO to see the result of the sweepstakes.

Tip! If your Instagram profile is verified, you have the possibility to link the Story to a URL which allows you to link the Story to the Winners page of the Sweepstakes.

Idea 5: Publish the Winners page on other social networks and other channels like your blog, newsletter or website.

Don’t forget to use your other social networks and channels of communication with your users to announce the result of the sweepstakes: Facebook, Twitter, sending a newsletter, or posting on your blog or even on your website. All channels are valid to announce the winners since you want to reach as many users as possible.

And remember that in all these channels, the link to the Winners page will be clickable so it will allow your users to see the Winners page of the sweepstakes easily.